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Russian Internet search giant Yandex (YNDX) is based in Amsterdam, but said it would issue stock and take on $490 million in debt to purchase its Moscow headquarters as the weak ruble – it pays rent in dollars — weighs on margins. We combed through the transcript of today’s conference call on the purchase and provide comments from the Yandex CEO in response to questions from Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and other interested parties. The U.S.-traded shares of Yandex were down nearly 3% to $12.72 in midday trading.

It’s time to take profits in the Mexican media giant Grupo Televisa (TV) in light of weak quarterly advertising revenue, says J.P. Morgan in a downgrade today.

The Argus Leader via AP

Screens show the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup final.

Shares of Televisa are down 6% today, while the iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF (EWW) is down 1.2%.

Analysts Andre Baggio and Marcelo Santos at Banco J.P. Morgan downgraded the stock to Neutral from Overweight have a $42 price target on the stock. As they published their downgrade Tuesday, Televisa had appreciated 13% this year compared to a 2% decline in Mexico’s Bolsa. Excerpts from their report:

“We do not see further upside given weak results reported Monday, coupled with its historical high multiples: TV is now trading at 11.2 times forward enterprise value to earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization (EV/Ebitda, vs 5-year average of 9 times.
Weak results suggest downside for estimates. Ebitda in the second quarter was 11% below J.P. Morgan’s estimate and also 7% below consensus …

Advertising revenues (25% of total) came in very weak, shrinking 16.4% year over year. We believe that this underscores a very weak underlying trend, as advertising revenues declined by 11% versus the second uarter of 2013. TV stated that it had tough comps due to 2014 World Cup and the lack of political advertising and the absence of transmission of key soccer matches in the second quarter of 2015. Weak advertising revenues were the main cause behind the 14.6% contraction in content Ebitda.

Pay-TV business came in line with estimates, with revenues growing 10% year over year organically, while Ebitda was up 11% … We prefer Megacable (Overweight rating) among Mexican [telecommunications].”

Megacable Holdings (MHSDF and MEGACPO.Mexico) trades over the counter in the U.S.

The market seems to think the president of Brazil could get reelected, and the Bovespa Index is down nearly 3.75%.

More of the same is perceived as a negative for Brazil’s sagging economy, monetary and fiscal policy and stocks.

Leading stocks lower is the state-run energy company, Petroleo Brasileiro, AKA Petrobras, (PBR), whose shares have declined more than 10% today and 24% over the past month. Itau Unibanco Holding (ITUB) is down 7.5%, GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes (GOL) is down nearly 4%, OI (OIBR) is down 3.6% and utility Companhia de Saneamento Brasileiro (SBS) is down 2.5%.

Smallcaps have fared only slightly better: the iShares MSCI Brazil Small-Cap ETF (EWZS) is down nearly 3.5%, while the iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (EWZ) is down 4.2%.

Teneo Intelligence reports that incumbent President Dilma Rousseff is fiercely attacking candidate Marina Silva, and Rousseff is improving in the latest voter polls as a result of television advertising: “which has afforded Rousseff an almost six-fold advantage in airtime over challenger Marina Silva.”

One candidate would need half the vote in Sunday’s election to win. With three candidates and a close race, Teneo thinks President Rousseff “will likely be re-elected only in a second-round run-off, scheduled for 26 October.”

International advertising and marketing agency WPP Group is getting decent revenue growth in the emerging world as it takes share from competitors.

U.S.-traded shares of WPP Group (WPPGY), the dominant agency in a consolidating industry, are up 1.4% today; J.P. Morgan thinks the stock’s valuation is attractive and upped its price target 4.5%. Shares of Omnicom Group (OMC) are flat. In May, a $35 billion proposed merger that would have united Omnicom and Publicis Groupe (PUB.France) collapsed. They are the No. 2 and No. 3 firms worldwide.

Still, WPP claims to be taking “a lot of business” from Omnicom and Publicis, and says it has lost a very small amount of business to Interpublic Group (IPG) on a net basis. Strong organic revenue growth in BRIC markets surely helped in the first half. As illustrated on the map at right, Russia and Eastern Europe contributed WPP’s strongest growth in net sales. Africa posted an admirable 4.4% growth figure in the first half, and Latin America produced nearly 6% growth. J.P. Morgan analysts write:

“China came back in Q2 with strong y/y growth in both Mainland and Greater China after a flat Q1 in Mainland China. Brazil slowed. WPP business was good in India pre-election and the expectation is to do even better post the election. Growth in Russia has been very strong but the sanctions are likely to have a negative impact. …

We believe current share price levels are an attractive entry point for the stock and now negative FX impacts for the remainder of the year have clearly been communicated by management (6-7% negative effect to revenues, about -20bps FX impact to margin). We expect investor attention to turn to the very strong outlook for 2015 where we forecast EPS growth of 14.2% (before potential bolt-on acquisitions) on a ‘15E P/E of 13.4x (vs EU Media of 18.4x), EV/EBITDA of 9.3x (vs EU Media of 10x) and DPS yield of 3.4%.”

Revenue in the three months ended in September rose 52%, year over year, to $994.6 million, yielding EPS of $1.37.

Analysts on average were modeling $1 billion and $1.28.

For the current quarter, the company sees $979 million to $1.01 billion. That is below the consensus $1.03 billion estimate.

CEO Robin Li said the results were “solid” and that the company made progress in its monetization, adding, “Mobile and cloud represent our vision for the future of China’s Internet, and Baidu will continue to proactively drive the development of this crucial ecosystem.

“We stand ready to meet the challenges and capture the opportunities the PC-to-mobile transition presents.”

About Emerging Markets Daily

Emerging markets have been synonymous with growth, but the outlook for individual nations is constantly changing. Countries from Brazil and Russia to Turkey face challenges including infrastructure bottlenecks, credit issues and political shifts. The Barrons.com Emerging Markets Daily blog analyzes news, data and research out of emerging markets beyond Asia to help readers navigate the investment landscape.

Barron’s veteran Dimitra DeFotis has been blogging about emerging market investing since traveling to India and Turkey. Based in New York, she previously wrote for Barron’s about U.S. equity investing, including cover stories and roundtables on energy themes. Dimitra was among the first digital journalists at the Chicago Tribune and started her career as a police reporter at the Daily Herald in the Chicago suburbs. Dimitra holds degrees from the University of Illinois and Columbia University, where she was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in the business and journalism schools.